


how much can you fit under your skin?

by goatlysacrifices



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Anxiety, Coming Out, Dysphoria, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family Dynamics, Gen, Gender Dysphoria, Good Parent Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Hurt TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), Hurt Wilbur Soot, Hurt/Comfort, Misgendering, Nonbinary Character, Nonbinary Wilbur Soot, Trans Character, Trans Wilbur Soot, Wilbur Soot Angst, Wilbur Soot and Technoblade and TommyInnit are Siblings, accidental misgendering, he is not the focus but he is also not having a good time, technically, teen and up is mostly for swearing tbh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-15
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-21 20:01:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30027090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goatlysacrifices/pseuds/goatlysacrifices
Summary: Tommy was the youngest brother, it was his job the be annoying. One of his worst habits was bursting into a room without knocking, leaving him to interrupt some fairly private things—say, a gender crisis. [Family fic]for the prompt: tommy walks in on wilbur doing something he shouldn't betitle is from Under My Skin by Jukebox the Ghost
Relationships: TommyInnit & Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Wilbur Soot & Phil Watson, Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit, Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit & Phil Watson
Comments: 18
Kudos: 183
Collections: Will's TWB Challenge Collection





	how much can you fit under your skin?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [diapason](https://archiveofourown.org/users/diapason/gifts).



> !! I AM HERE TO PUSH THE TRANS WILBUR AGENDA !!
> 
> in all honesty this was a prompt challenge from a lovely discord filled with lovely people that i am a part of, where different people got the same prompt with a challenge for each of us to write (with a time limit of 48 hours) in a different genre. mine was h/c !!
> 
> Cw: dysphoria, minor descriptions of self harm (scratching), if you have the same unnamed phobia as me—the sensation of foreign objects being under your skin—maybe don't read this one! those parts are pretty heavy in the vent category haha

Wilbur had felt off for a while.

Not _bad_ perse, just… off. As if someone had taken all the atoms in the universe and shifted them ever so slightly to the left, tricking his eyes into believing all was well. He couldn’t put a name to it; the feeling that coursed through him, filtered through his blood like a slow acting poison, he just knew it was wrong. Guilt ran him into the ground like a child that had been caught in a lie; he felt dirty. A kind of dirty that no shower would scrub off, making him want to claw away his skin just to start anew. A clean slate—a fresh start.

Even worse than the overwhelming sense that something was wrong, was the fact that nothing actually was. His life had been on a steady incline in quality since being adopted by Phil, gaining a family and a feeling of security for the first time in his life, and he wasn’t quite sure if he even had the right to complain. Every morning he woke up in a warm bed to a (mostly) tidy room, having the chance to shower and eat whenever he wanted, though Phil tended to put up a fuss if they didn’t have at least something for breakfast.

He couldn’t help but feel ashamed that he was feeling this way; that the hot water from the showers he had access to sometimes contained a higher saline content than was standard. That he cowered under his dad's loving gaze at family dinner, flinched at Techno's analytical glares, couldn’t stand the way Tommy still worshipped him as a hero.

 _Oh Wilbur,_ he would say, _help me with my homework? I need someone smart to do it,_ or even worse, _you’re the best brother!_

It sickened him, even without a reason as to why, it sickened him to his core. He didn’t even want to think about it, the gleaming look in his eye accompanied by a wide smile. Of course, he loved his brother—the fact that they weren't blood related would never change that. He just couldn’t bear to think of the fact that Tommy looked up to him; he wanted to be just like him.

Tommy couldn’t be like Wilbur because Wilbur didn’t want to be like Wilbur. If he had been given the option, he would have changed so much about himself already, but he couldn’t for the fact that people would ask him _why?_ They would want to know why he did it, what was so wrong with the way he looked and acted before and that wasn’t an answer Wilbur could give them. He didn’t know himself.

There was just something skin deep about him that wasn’t right, that he needed rid of. The sensation was so uncomfortable that it made him scratch roughly at the soft skin on his forearms for hours; desperate for any way to get rid of the feeling. He was so confused and so emotionally drained after weeks and weeks of mental torment that he was aching for any sort of answer.

Which is why he found himself still up at almost two in the morning, his laptop screen on the lowest brightness the only thing illuminating the room. It wasn’t a school night so he didn’t need to be that quiet, but the thought of anyone knowing what he was searching filled him with an incredible sense of dread.

It was ridiculous—he was almost seventeen for god’s sake. He shouldn’t be this worried about someone looking at his browser history, especially with his family’s strong stance on privacy. But alas, no matter how many times he tried to reassure himself, he still found his chest getting tight, hands shaking as he slowly typed into the search-bar. 

_skin feels wrong_

_why does my skin feel wrong_

_things under skin_

The last one was distinctly _not_ what he was going for, quickly closing the tab before he could read much more than ‘Bugs that burrow under your skin’. So far he hadn’t found anything even remotely useful, with his panic building by fractions as the time dragged on and on. He took a deep breath, running his hands over his face before placing them back on his laptop.

_how to feel comfortable in my body_

_body image problems_

_body dysmorphia_

Still nothing.

Wilbur sighed heavily, freezing immediately when he heard a creak from the hallway. The house may have been getting up there in years but hallways floorboards didn’t just creak on their own; either someone was outside his room or they had recently inherited a ghost.

He kept his breathing as quiet as possible—hand resting on the edge of his laptop to close it in an instant—listening carefully for any other noise to creep its way under the crack beneath his door.

He heard nothing else for five minutes, by which he decided it was safe enough to just ignore it—sliding his fingers across the trackpad to wake up the screen of his laptop again.

The screen flickered back on to the page he had left it on, a website too brightly coloured for the content it displayed. Mixed between the fun banners and quirky titles was a list of reasons young teens might hate themselves, with everything from bullying to serious metal disorders. 

There was one in particular that stuck out to Wilbur: dysphoria.

He had never heard of it before, and at this point he was desperate for any answers he could get. Forcing his shaky hands to cooperate, he opened a new tab to a fresh search-bar. 

_what is dysphoria_

_what does dysphoria feel like_

_dysphoria symptoms_

_how to know you arent cis_

_nonbinary_

_am i nonbinary_

Looking at the results, Wilbur was fairly sure they’d found their match. The words sat in front of them couldn’t have been clearer if someone had smacked them in the face. Of course, they still had a lot of thing to figure out. They knew they were trans but they didn’t quite know what that _meant_ yet, just that something finally felt right after weeks and weeks of torture.

They were so distracted by the elation of finally understanding, that they didn’t notice their door was opening until the light was streaming in from the hallway, blocked out only by a single silhouette. Wilbur couldn’t quite distinguish who in their family it was until the figure spoke up in a voice far too loud for the time of night that it was.

“Wilbur what the FUCK are you doing? You said you were going to sleep hours ago,” the figure—now identified as Tommy—asked, making his way through the doorway and towards Wilbur's bed.

Wilbur panicked, slamming their laptop shut before pulling it close to their chest. “Nothing!” they replied quickly, watching fearfully as the boy froze in his advance.

Tommy seemed to hesitate for a second; Wilbur would have said he was considering his options if they didn’t already know that the kid didn’t think. As usual, he came to a decision pretty quickly, narrowing his eyes as he stepped closer.

“What were you looking at? Porn?”

Wilbur didn’t want to think about the fact their little brother knew what porn was, or that he thought that they would watch it, but their frazzled brain was forcing them to.

Thousands of thoughts raced through their head, faster than they could even process, and Wilbur could feel their breathing speeding up exponentially. They gripped their laptop harder into their chest to prevent their brother form trying to take it from them, comforted by the way their nails dug into their arms slightly.

Tommy noticed their mounting terror fairly fast for how oblivious he was normally, hastily backtracking, his arms coming up to a mock surrender position.

“Hey, I mean, you don’t have to tell me! Its not a big deal or anything, just fucking go to sleep or whatever.”

Tommy scowled at them as he turned to leave, the concerned tint to his eyes surveying Wilbur's face until he turned his head away to see where he was going. He switched the hallway light off on his way and Wilbur was plunged into total darkness in the absence of their laptop screen.

The situation hit them fully as they were plugging their laptop in to charge on their desk, curling up into a tight ball of misery once they returned to their bed. They burrowed themself under the covers to try and muffle their cries—not wanting the whole house to know of their breakdown.

They had seen the look in Tommy's eyes, Wilbur knew he would tell dad about this and that wasn’t a conversation Wilbur was prepared for even remotely. They pulled the duvet over their head desperately, and for the first time since being adopted into the family, Wilbur cried themself to sleep.

* * *

The next morning was as awkward as Wilbur had expected it to be.

They were down later than they usually were—having to wash their face of any evidence of tears—and the other members of the family were already downstairs by the time they got there. Tommy pointedly avoided eye contact the whole time while Phil smiled as he placed a plate of pancakes in front of them. They were piled high with so such syrup that Wilbur felt sick just looking at them, pushing the sticky mess around their plate until their older brother’s watchful eye forced them to take a bite.

The small amount of food they were forced to eat sat right on top of the monster that had made a home in their stomach, the blasted thing clawing it up anytime Tommy looked at them hopelessly when he thought Wilbur wasn’t looking.

It was the most uncomfortable Wilbur had ever been—and that was saying a lot.

It was honestly quite impressive that Tommy could make them feel so uneasy with just fleeting glances when they had been so cramped in their own skin for weeks. The feeling of their own flesh being someone else’s hardly compared to the thought that they could somehow all know. That Wilbur's secret would get out just hours after they truly discovered it themself.

Phil seemed to notice the tension after a while; he was used to his oldest not talking that much, but complete radio silence from the other two as well was almost unheard of. It was only when Wilbur tensed as he sat at the table opposite them that he knew something was definitely wrong.

“Okay, right, what's going on with you two? You’ve been acting weird all morning,” he asked, eyes moving between the two as no answer was immediately offered.

Wilbur didn’t know what to do. 

They wanted to speak up, to explain the situation in a way that was under their control, but they found themself frozen in their seat. They had barely had even half an hour of being awake as their new self, and now Tommy was about to spill all their secrets in his usual brash manner. 

They should have gotten a bag ready or something—just in case. Phil was wonderful, the man was practically a saint, but there was surely only so many things Wilbur can have wrong with them before they get the boot. Anxiety was a lot on its own, now coupled with the fact that they were most likely nonbinary and surely it had to be too much for the old man, with them carted off to a group home before they could even try to explain themself.

The silence dragged on as their thoughts ran laps around their brain; neither Tommy nor Wilbur bothered even attempting to respond to Phil, the man’s eyebrows furrowing in concern.

“Did something happen?” he asked, looking to Techno for help but gaining only a bewildered look in return.

The air only seemed to get thicker and thicker as nobody around the table said a word, the only sounds were Phil and Techno's cutlery against their plates and Tommy's restless tapping of his feet. The two youngest had given up on eating—with Tommy sure he would spout something stupid if he opened his mouth and Wilbur too busy trying not to get up and run out the front door.

Eventually the tension got too much, and they had to settle for an alternative.

Their chair screeched horribly as they stood, making them and everyone else wince. Phil recovered quickly enough, asking Wilbur where _he_ was going without eating _his_ breakfast. It made them sick faster than the pancakes ever did, racing up the stairs after a quick excuse of not being hungry.

The kitchen was left in stunned in silence, both of the eldest still staring at the foot of the stairs while Tommy hunched in on himself to make himself as small as possible. He looked so pitiful that Techno left the room without even being prompted, heading up the stairs after Wilbur to leave the other two alone at the table.

Phil scooted his chair across the floor to be closer to Tommy’s, the boy not even glancing up at the loud scraping noise that the action entailed. He did look up when Phil placed a hand on his arm gently, eyes brimming with unshed tears.

“What's up, buddy?”

Tommy took a shuddering breath, pulling his arm out of Phil's grasp to wipe at his eyes. “Will’s really upset; I don’t know what's wrong with him.” He looked up to meet Phil's eyes with his own, fear etched across the baby blue irises. “He’s _scared_ of me Phil.”

Phil felt his heart crumble slightly at the look on his son’s face; he never wanted any of his boys to feel scared ever again, not after what they’d been through. “Talk it through from the beginning, go from the start. What happened Toms?”

The boy took a moment to decide what to say, eyeing the ways the kitchen tiles lined up beneath his socked feet.

“He was still awake when I got up to go to the bathroom last night, I could hear him typing from the hallway. When I went in his room to like, see what he was doing, he shut his laptop really fast and wouldn’t let me see what was on it.”

Tommy stopped for a second and Phil took the time to wipe away the single tear that had rolled down the boy’s cheek. The boy pressed his face further into his dad’s hand, taking a minute to compose himself before continuing.

“He looked _terrified_ Dad, all freaked out and shit over _me!_ I don't want that!"

Phil moved his hand from his cheek to the top of his head, carefully smoothing over his bedhead as the teen buried his face in the crook of his neck.

“D’you want me to go talk to him? I'm sure this is just a big misunderstanding,” he reassured softly, smiling even softer when Tommy looked up at him with hopeful eyes.

“Would you?”

Phil chuckled, ruffling his unruly blonde hair as he stood out of his chair to walk past him towards the stairs. “Of course, eat your pancakes—you’ll need all the energy for growing big and strong.”

Phil's smile widened as the boy immediately shoved at least two whole pancakes in his mouth—smile fading more and more the further he walked up the stairs, unsure of what he would face at the end of them.

* * *

Wilbur was bundled up in their duvet, trying desperately to block out anything and everything, when Phil knocked tentatively on their door. It was quiet enough that they could have ignored it if they wanted to—could have feigned ignorance yet again—but they knew deep down that their dad wasn’t going to leave them alone this time.

Their point was proven when the door creaked open quietly—the noise sounding far too loud in the thick atmosphere of their bedroom. They heard the soft padding of feet making their way over to the bed, feeling the mattress dip as he sat down somewhere near their head.

A hand touched their shoulder and they forced themselves not to flinch, the struggle easing with each comforting rub of their dad’s hand.

“Will?” The voice was muffled by the sheets pulled all the way over their head but the concern mixed into the sound was still fairly evident. “You gotta talk to me bud, what's going on?”

Wilbur made no move to respond, not even bothering to remove their head from the sweltering heat of their self-made duvet prison. They knew, _they knew,_ as soon as they took one look into their father’s kind eyes, they would spill everything. They would talk and talk and _talk_ until their throat was sore and their mouth was dry and they had nothing more to say. They would talk themselves out of a family and talk themselves out of a home before their brain could even catch on to what was being said.

Maybe if they just didn’t talk nothing bad would happen.

Phil was too patient for that though, waiting quietly for Wilbur to be ready while whispering soft reassurances under his breath.

Wilbur tried to tune them out, they really did, but it was hard when the only thing they craved was for someone to tell that it was going to be ok; that they didn’t have to hide anymore. They let themself relax into the comforting touch, racing thoughts quieting for the first time in what felt like forever.

At least they did, before one particular statement broke through the haze of exhaustion lulling on Wilbur's brain.

“You’re my son and I love you so, so much-”

_You’re my **son.**_

_**Son.** _

Wilbur was suddenly filled with an emotion they couldn’t quite describe easily, sitting somewhere between disgust, anger, hurt and confusion. They shot up into a sitting position, throwing the duvet and Phil's hand off their shoulders in one fell swoop.

They could see the raw confusion and concern in their father’s eyes, finding it hard to care in the moment as their brain tunnelled on the sensation of crawling all over their body. Their arms, their legs, anywhere covered in their treacherous skin seared with discomfort. Their breathing became ragged as they fought the urge to claw at their skin, to tear it off and be rid of it, balling their hands into fists to keep them from digging in anywhere else.

“Will, what’s-”

“I’M NOT YOUR SON.”

They both froze, with Phil's eyebrows furrowing further and Wilbur immediately slapping their hands over their mouth.

Guilt was added to Wilbur's horrible concoction of emotions as hurt spread across their dad’s face. They had already decided that this conversation was not going to happen, and now it was, and things were going worse than they could have ever imagined.

They felt it as the tears started to fall down their face steadily, felt their breathing stutter as sobs wracked their small frame, felt their chest tighten as they tried to hold in a deep enough breath.

“I don’t wanna be a boy anymore Dad…”

They closed their eyes—both anticipating a hit and unwilling to see the look on Phil's face when he realised that adopting them had been a mistake.

Except a blow never came, instead warm arms snaked their way around them and pulled them tight against an even warmer chest. The warmth spread through them steadily, making them settle into their dad’s arms like a small child after a nightmare.

“That’s okay! Its okay to feel like that, and I'm so glad that you told me!” Phil soothed; his voice thick with his own unshed tears.

Wilbur sobbed in return, digging their nails into the back Phil's shirt instead of their skin for once. “I- I think I'm nonbinary?” they voiced, clearing their throat to try and bring their speech anywhere close to normal. “I like they/them pronouns. They feel right.”

Phil grabbed their shoulders to pull them away from his chest, looking into their eyes with a sad smile. “Did it not feel right before?”

Wilbur shook their head, relieved at finally being heard after so long dealing with things by themself.

Phil reached to dry their tears, hand lingering on their cheek for a few seconds longer than strictly necessary. “Wilbur, I am so sorry. You should have said something, I would have helped you,” he affirmed sincerely, eyes widening as a revelation suddenly hit him.

“Oh my god, I didn’t even- Are you still okay with Wilbur? I want you to be comfortable and-”

Wilbur cut off his nervous rambling with a wet laugh, burying their face in his tearstained shirt once again. “Wilbur's fine—great even.”

Phil wrapped his arms back around them in return, resting his chin on the crown of Wilbur's head. “I love you so much, nothing will ever change that. I'm so proud of you for telling me,” he mumbled into their hair and, for the first time in a while, everything felt _right._

**Author's Note:**

> https://discord.gg/w9CwSK26mm is the discord if you feel like joining, come say hi !!


End file.
